Part Two: Secrets
by Majenta
Summary: Sequel to "That Which is Most Precious." Gollum/Frodo that becomes Sam/Frodo. Please r/r!!


  
Title: Secrets (sequel to That Which is Most Precious)   
Author: Majenta   
Contains: Frodo/Sam, Frodo/Gollum and massive angst   
Rating: PG-13   
Disclaimer: I do not own these lovely characters and I'm sure that Tolkien would smack me if he read this but the truth is simply this: somebody had to write this fic, and I had be the one to write it. And yes, it's a really gross idea.   
  
Frodo slept exhausted in the soft marshy moss and tangled roots of swamp trees throughout the day. When the moon rose, clouds gathered overhead in pieces, darkening the sky and the soft delicate light that broke through the trees. He awoke sore and tired, rubbing dirt from his hands and cheek. He wandered into the dark marshlands again, holding himself up with trees. He felt dirty beneath his clothes, as if he'd been rubbed raw by Gollum's hands. He searched for his lover in the thick, hot darkness, drawing further and further away from Mordor. He didn't sense Gollum creeping along with him, could not sense his presence, until he saw his flaming dark eyes in the shadows at the edge of the path they had beaten in two nights before. A stillness settled between them and Frodo leaned back against a tree, his body limp. Gollum muttered to himself for a moment, his words were hissing, and his large doll-like eyes flitted back and forth like a frightened animal's would.   
"Not nice Master, he leaves us here with no words. Perhaps we is lost, we is hungry, but Master does not care."   
Frodo closed his eyes and his skin seemed to thin itself out beneath his clothes. He broke into a sweat.   
"I'm going to look for Sam. I'm not going any further until we find him."   
Gollum was shaking, his large spidery hands crossed over his chest.   
"Sméagol is looking as well, he looks with Master. Good Master, nice precious," he dropped low to the ground and crawled into the pathway like an insect, his face turned up to Frodo's. The silent air between them came alive and Frodo felt ill. He put his hands to his stomach.   
"Sméagol . . ."   
He watched as Gollum drew himself up to his full height, straightening his long, bony back. He was just a bit taller than Frodo, with his thin neck extended and his legs straight, his kneecaps like stones beneath his rough skin. When he parted his lips, the soft light shone on his tiny dangerous teeth and Frodo's hand went unconsciously to his neck where he'd found small cuts flaked with blood when he'd awakened. That mouth against his skin. His stomach turned and he tore his eyes away desperately. A small rustling of hot wind ran through the drooping trees and Gollum's fingers extended long and thin to Frodo's shoulders, then a few slid beneath the collar of his shirt.   
Frodo grimaced and pushed his hand away, "Don't."   
Gollum dropped down to his hunch again, bringing his arms close to his chest and hissed through his teeth.   
"Mean, tricksey, gollum. Poor Sméagol, he loves his Master. He does what he is told. He does not even try and take his precious when he has the chance. He wants his Master instead, he is good, my love, my precious."   
Frodo wondered vaguely to whom he spoke, whether it be him or the ring, or perhaps only himself. He put his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground, trying to keep his eyes away from Gollum's crouching figure. He took a few steps along the path, halted, and sank down onto the soft ground. Gollum watched him, his huge flickering eyes filling with tears. He hid his face with his fingers and Frodo watched him. The pity and revulsion he felt was excruciating, it bit at his skin the way Gollum's tiny teeth had. Frodo hated that he was repulsed by his shriveled dark skin, hated that he had lay still the night before when Gollum had touched his skin with a hunger unsettled for over five hundred years. A slave to the ring, like Isildor, like Boromir but the disease was deeper in this poor creature than any of the others. Tenderly, he reached out and touched Gollum's thin shoulder. Immediately, Gollum leaned in towards him, whimpering softly. The dark of the forest closed in around them.   
Gollum's eyes were sweeping Frodo's body hungrily, his fingers tangling and untangling with themselves. Frodo wondered again about his life before the ring had found him, that which he claimed to have no memory of. But he had known what to do, clumsy and strange as he was, and the thought that he might have, at one time, been in love made Frodo unable to pull away.   
"I have a looksies for your Sam," Gollum said softly, putting his face very close to Frodo's, almost until their noses brushed, and then they did. Frodo lowered his eyes instinctually but kept them on Gollum, asking him silently not to come any closer. His tiny teeth were showing in the half-light through the trees, his small ribbed chest was heaving sadly up and down. His tongue flickered out from between his shriveled lips, touching Frodo's and Frodo shivered. They had done much, but they had not kissed. He turned his face away and Gollum put his long, thin arms around Frodo's shoulders, burying his head against his neck, against the tiny, unintentional cuts he had put there. Frodo noticed, vaguely, that his skin did not smell of the marsh, or rotten, or of fish, but very much like that of another Hobbit.   
  
They parted with little talking, planning to meet in the clearing again in another hour. Frodo kept close to the path, holding to trees as he waded through the soft swamplands. His dizziness was leaden upon him, as was his guilt. He thought often, dreamily, of awakening in Rivendel with his cheek pressed to Sam's warm, smooth chest, their fingers and legs tangled beneath the soft sheets. He shuddered and ran his hands over his body, banishing the feeling of Gollum's hands. But he could not. He wept as he walked, sick in his heart and body.   
"And I allowed it, I . . ." he leaned forward onto his knees and wretched into the tangled roots of the trees, "And I hated it because it wasn't you, Sam!" He put his face in his hands, "I hated it." The hour passed and he did not return to the clearing. In a dream he was, and in his dream he saw Sam sitting forlorn in the forest until he called his name, and he met Frodo's eyes.   
"I've looked so long for you."   
"Mr. Frodo!"   
"I've been looking so long . . ."   
"Frodo!"   
The vision faltered and he blinked. Sam was holding him, really holding him, his cheeks smeared with dirt and blood above his brow, his lips parted to tears that cleaned his face, "I thought I'd never see you again."   
Frodo shivered and threw his arms about his lover's neck, letting out a cry. "I thought you were a dream, I've dreamed you so many times." Sam tried to stroke his face but Frodo was kissing him, harder than he meant to but as hard as he needed. The cuts at his neck tore and began to bleed again as he strained his neck, touching Sam's small shoulders, his hair. They were gasping when they parted. Sam looked dizzy, perplexed, "Frodo . . ."   
He touched the blood at Frodo's neck, then wiped it away. "You're hurt."   
Frodo shook his head, tears running from his eyes, the ring burning into his skin. He opened his lips to tell Sam his secret and could not. He stammered and closed his eyes, putting his head against Sam's chest. His heartbeat was so familiar, so sweet. They curled together. "Make love to me."   
Sam started and stroked Frodo's tangled curls. "Not here, Master."   
"Don't call me that," he pleaded.   
A silence startled the air and Sam pushed Frodo back by the shoulders, meeting eyes, "Why not?"   
"That's what he calls me," Frodo's lips trembled and he had the insane urge to say it had been rape, for it had felt like it, but remembered quickly that he had never stopped him. But he had been so tired. He had been so weary, and Gollum was so much stronger than him. He could say that it was rape, but it had not been meant as such. He remembered gazing helplessly up into Gollum's wide and searching eyes, desperate. For the first time since Frodo had met him, his eyes had been clear and so familiar. He had stroked Frodo's cheeks with a softness that he had felt in Sam. He held Sam to him, kissing his mouth.   
"Did that filthy thing hurt-"   
"No," Frodo said quickly, then put his hands to his mouth. "Don't talk, just stay like this. I can stay like this forever." He shut his eyes hard. The beat of drums beyond the swamps began again as Sam's hands slid beneath Frodo's shirt, finding his warmth and washing away half the poison of his guilt with his touching. Frodo watched the stars wink between the trees, holding Sam to him. He would keep very few secrets, but he would keep secrets none the less. In Sam's arms, he forgot what he had done.   
  
Gollum wandered through the clearing, searching gradually more frantically for Frodo until he saw the glimmer of his white skin beneath the moonlight, filtering down through the trees. He shrank back into the shadows, wringing his hands as he watched, only for a moment, Sam and Frodo's eyes lock with passionate intensity as they made love, the ring hidden on Frodo's chest between them. His precious, one of two things that were most precious to him. He turned away and sank down at the edge of the water, his eyes shutting and giving him the dark that he longed for. He shook and hugged himself.   
There were few things that lingered long in his poisoned mind, save his need and his lust for what he loved and hated above all other things, the ring. But scattered things remained and scattered things were remembered. When Frodo had spoken of Sam, something was in his eyes that Gollum remembered and often lost in his twisted and ruined thoughts. He remembered sunlight that did not hurt his eyes, centuries ago, and he remembered a boy with milky skin and coal black hair, much like Frodo, who kissed his hand, still whole and smooth, as they lay tangled together in the grass. He remembered the taste of the boy's lips and vaguely remembered the bell-like quality of his voice, but could recall very few things that he said.   
So once he had been whole, once he had loved something as dearly as his ring, his precious. He crushed his hands to his face and cried out, wanting to forget it as much as he wanted it to overcome his madness. That boy's hair was silk in his fingers, like Frodo's. That boy had the same small shoulders and pink lips. Gollum remembered gazing down into Frodo's face, trying to translate his expression as they lay skin to skin, and finding that there was nothing that resembled love or real desire or pleasure in it. He found confusion and perhaps repulsion too. And regret. It was the first time his thoughts had turned away from the ring, and it had felt like heaven. But seeing that in Frodo's face, Gollum had fled from the soft ground and Frodo's trembling white naked skin. He had fled back to the shadows and hid his face, trying to forget at once how it had felt, how wonderful . . .   
He brought his hands away from his face and looked down at his blackened, shriveled body, then leaned forward to see his face in the reflection of the water, like a monster. He turned away again and listened to Sam and Frodo's soft whispering between the trees, longed for the gentle quality of their words. Gandalf had once urged Frodo to believe that Gollum was not wholly ruined, not completely mad. And that was quite true. Gollum remembered, even as he assured Frodo that he did not, love beyond the lust for possession, and he had wondered, as his thoughts cleared, if he could find that again. But he could not, and he never would.   
He rose and walked to the edge of the clearing again, watching as Frodo and Sam curled against each other, the elvencloak thrown about them, and Sam kissed Frodo's naked shoulder. The ring shone against his bare skin and Gollum felt his need dulled, if only for a moment, and let his eyes linger on Frodo's face.   
"We loves . . . I, we, I loves him, p-p-precious." The dark heard his words and shivered. Frodo slept on. Gollum shut his eyes and tried to find at least one clear picture of that ancient, nameless boy stored delicately in his heart, but could not. It was fading now, fading once again and as the madness took him, he curled into himself. But the love did not leave him, as it never had, and it disguised itself in his heart as a shard of insane desire. But it remained, and it burned and as Frodo slept with Sam's arms tucked about him, safe in his secrecy, Gollum's frail shell of a heart cracked, and began to blur until nothing remained but the lingering warmth of his skin.   
That, too, faded in time.   
~ end ~ 


End file.
